A Proposal
by Bob The Other Zombie
Summary: Sirius has a love problem and asks James for advice. What happens when you add in pregnant Lily, pantsless Peter, candles, one pot of nearly-boiled water, snogging, Remus' favorite record, multiple unknown kitchen devices, and a very bad pun? One very confused werewolf, is what! RLSB. One-shot.


When James arrives in Sirius' living room, Sirius is sprawled dramatically on his couch, face in the pillow. James stands awkwardly next to the fireplace, unsure if he is interrupting something."Uh...Pads?"

"I am dying, Prongs." Sirius says, voice muffled.

"That's nice. Er, I've got a pregnant wife waiting for me at home, so..."

Sirius flops onto his back. "I am dying...of heartache."

James laughs. "Sirius Black is having love problems? After all those girls you snogged at Hogwarts?"

Sirius eyes him sourly. " Oh, just because you were having big redheaded love problems at the time..."

"All right, well, if you're just going to rag on Lily, I'm out." James says. "Pregnant wife, you know."

"James." Sirius says, and something in his tone of voice makes James turn back around. "James," Sirius says again, as if steeling himself, and then the single most ridiculous sentence James has ever heard comes out of Sirius' mouth.

"You want to WHAT?" James says. Sirius calmly repeats himself. James begins laughing, thinking Sirius must be joking, but there isn't a trace of humor in his face or voice for once. "You're serious." James says.

"All the time." Sirius quips.

James runs a hand through his hair, trying to process this information. If someone had told him two years ago that Sirius Black would want to...well, he would not have believed that he would be married and expecting right now, either, but that's beside the point. "Wuh. Buh. How?"

"I don't know, mate!" Sirius says. "I've never been good at this type of stuff! And I figured since you and Lily are the most moony-eyed married couple I know, you must have done it right!"

"Well, uh, I don't really remember how it happened." James says. "It just kind of...happened."

"Prooooonnnngggsss!" Sirius wails. "You've got to help me! I want to do it tonight!"

"All right. All right. Let me think." James says, but all he can think of is he's supposed to be cooking Lily supper right now, and she's been feeling so ill lately, and will it be a boy or a girl, and he really wants to see her after such a long day at work but Sirius needed him too...unless he can hit two Bludgers with one bat. "Hey, I've got an idea! We can get Lily to help you! She's good at this sort of thing!"

Sirius shakes his head. "No, no, no, no. That girl may be your wife, but she's also pure evil. If she heard that I wanted to...well, she'd hold it over my head until I died of excessive neck strain. My last words would be 'Curse you, Proooonnnngsss!'"

"Come on, I can't really help you." James says. "I mean, it happens differently for everyone. You remember Frank and Alice's story, right?"

Sirius makes a face. "There is no way I am doing that."

"And the Weasleys." James says. He and Sirius groan at the thought. "If I were Molly, I would have said no."

"So what, I'm just supposed to do whatever feels right?" Sirius says, clutching the pillow. "Prongs, you know that gets me in trouble! Remember the Incident with the Pipes?"

"Yes, a Padfoot should never do how he feels." James says, straight-faced. "Especially not around McGonagall. But seriously, Pads, let Lily talk to you. She's good at this kind of stuff. She got Frank and Alice together, remember?"

"All right." Sirius grumbles. "But I refuse to sing any sappy songs."

"SIRIUS BLACK!" Lily screeches when he tells her a few minutes later. "Are you serious?"

"All the time." James and Sirius say.

"Well, you've got to make it romantic." Lily says. "It can't just be any night. Here- is this the room you want to do it in?"

Sirius glances around his bare, dingy living room. "Uh...possibly?"

"Then you've got to set the mood." Lily says. "Here." She takes out her wand and transfigures the chipped crown molding into some twinkle lights and the large, bulky lamps Sirius keeps because they look like something out of a spy movie into several scented candles. She also starts a roaring fire in the fireplace. "Turn out the lights. This is perfect. Now, you know what else you need?"

"What?" Sirius asks.

"Music." Lily says. "You've got a record player. Good. Now you need to play some romantic music, like, I don't know..."

"I don't think anyone in this flat is a Celestina Warbeck fan." Sirius says quickly.

"Well, fine, we'll just have to make do with what you have." Lily says. "Just try to find something without raunchy lyrics, all right? And you'll need to cook something nice for dinner..." She walks into the kitchen, talking all the way.

"James, your wife is scaring me." Sirius whispers.

"She's brilliant." James says. "Food- lighting- music- wonder if she wishes I'd thought of that-"

"Does she always look so- demented?" Sirius says. "Is this how pregnant women get or is it just a side effect from living with you?"

"Shut up." James says, shoving Sirius.

"James! Sirius!" Lily calls. Reluctantly, Sirius follows James into the kitchen. Lily is rummaging through the cabinets, pulling out all sorts of kitchen utensils Sirius has never seen before, let alone figured out a use for. He doesn't usually do the cooking. "Okay, good, there you two are. James, I need you to go upstairs, look through Sirius' records, try to find something romantic."

"Yes ma'am." James says, saluting and leaving.

"Okay, now Sirius, how good are you at cooking?" Lily says, brandishing a dangerous-looking metal device at him.

Sirius backs away automatically. "Uh, I make sandwiches all the time, and I love to fry things, and there was that one time I made soup...but I really love frying things."

"Well that's no help!" Lily says. "How are you supposed to make a romantic meal out of sandwiches and fried things?"

"And soup. Don't forget soup. Lily, I don't suppose you could..."

"No, that's sexist, and anyways James usually does the cooking." Sirius' smirk at this revelation quickly fades when Lily gets the glimmer of another crazy idea in her mind. "But you know who does know how to cook...who would be really helpful right now..."

"No." Sirius says. "No. We are not bringing another person into this. Especially not if that someone is-"

"Oi, Padfoot!"

Sirius closes his eyes, cursing whatever branch of the fates is responsible for inconvenient timing. Lily rushes into the living room, and Sirius follows, yelling, "No, no, no!"

Peter's head pokes out of the fireplace. "Hey, Padfoot, I was just popping by and I saw all these candles. What's going on, then?"

Lily looks at him meaningfully and Sirius sighs and explains. When he's done, Peter laughs like James did, only longer and much louder. "You're not serious. Wait, you aren't serious, are you?"

"Yes!" Sirius says, exasperated. "Why does everyone think I'm not serious? It's my bloody name!"

"Anyways, Sirius was wondering if you could help him with the cooking." Lily said. "Since you're good at cooking and all."

"Sure, just let me put on some pants."

"Ew, Wormy!" Sirius says.

"Hey, it's not like you can see me right now! I have on boxers!"

Sirius and Lily leave Peter to his pants-putting-on and return to the kitchen. "Look, Lily, I know you mean well, but I don't want this to be a big production." Sirius says. "Not like Frank and Alice. You know how we are, it wouldn't really-"

"Yes, but it has got to be romantic!" Lily says. "Things like this are supposed to be romantic!" Sirius is wondering idly if he should tell James to be more romantic when he nearly crashes into James. For some reason, James is carrying what looks like all the records in the flat.

"Sorry, mate, coming through." James says. "Hey, Lil, I wasn't sure what you meant by romantic so I just brought all the records I could find. Wanna help me look through them?"

Sirius tenses. "Prongs! Be careful with those!"

"Yeah, sure, let's go." says Lily, and they head into the living room, ignoring him. Sirius is about to follow to make sure James doesn't damage those records- they're very important, after all- but Peter comes barging through the doorway wearing an apron saying 'Kiss the Chef' and carrying cookbooks. "All right, what kind of romantic dinner do you want?"

"I don't know, Wormtail, that's what you're here for!" Sirius says. "What kind of meal is romantic?" He hears a crashing noise from the living room. "I said be careful!"

"Sorry, mate, accidentally knocked over the record player!" James calls. "Won't happen again!"

"How about some pasta primavera?" Peter says. "I've got a recipe that's a real delicacy!"

"I don't want a delicacy, I just want-" Another crash resounds from the living room. "All right, what are you lot doing in here, looking through records or breaking them?" Sirius stops in the living room doorway. James and Lily have apparently knocked a stack of record on the ground and are lying on top of them, snogging like hormonal teenagers. "James!"

"Whoops." James says, grinning cheekily.

"Oh, Sirius, sorry, but we were looking through them, and we found the song that we played, when, well..." Lily motions to her belly.

"Oh, eww, Lily!" Sirius says. "Focus,!" He returns to the kitchen, where Peter has filled a large pot with water and set it on the stove.

"All right, as long as your oven works, this water should be boiling soon." Peter says.

"Can't we use magic to speed up the process?" Sirius says.

"Already have." Peter says, grinning. "But this gives us more time to find ingredients. What do you have in the way of noodles?"

"How should I know?" Sirius says, pacing back and forth, irritated with all of them for taking control of what was supposed to be _his_special night. Yet another crash emits from the living room. "And will the moony-eyed married couple kindly stop-" Sirius reaches the doorway and freezes. Lily and James, who have apparently been discarding unromantic records willy-nilly, have thrown a record in its paper case too close to the fireplace, where it has predictably caught on fire. Sirius starts towards it- it's not just any record- but slips on the records scattered all over the floor and goes down, hands still outstretched towards the flaming record.

When he sits up, Lily and James are staring at him, horrified. "What?" Sirius says, and then feels intense heat on his right sleeve. "Oh, bugger," Sirius says, and the heat is travelling up his arm, "bugger, bugger, bugger, BUGGER! DO SOMETHING!"

James does- he tackles him, trying to smother the flames, and Lily yells "BLOODY MERLIN, SIRIUS IS ON FIRE!" and then Peter comes running in from the kitchen and _throws __the __entire __pot __of __near__-__boiling __water __onto __James __and __Sirius_. And just when Sirius is sitting up, thinking he cannot possibly feel more murderous his entire life-

"Sirius?" One very confused-looking Remus Lupin stands in the doorway. "Sirius, what's going on?"

Sirius lays back on the records, accepting defeat. The fates responsible for inconvenient timing have won. He will never recover from this.

"Moony!" Peter says.

"Yeah, yeah, he's fine." James says, quickly extricating himself from Sirius. "He's just-"

Lily silences both of them with a look.

Remus ignores them and rushes to Sirius. "Sirius, are you all right?" he says, and the feeling of his boyfriend's cool fingers pushing back his charred sleeve makes things better somehow. That's when Sirius knows the moment has arrived.

"Yeah, I'm fine." Sirius says, sitting up. "Remus, I-"

Remus isn't listening, still panicking and checking him for damage. "Why- why were you on fire? Are you burnt? Do we need to go to St. Mungo's?"

"No." Sirius says, getting frustrated. "Look, Remus-"

"I know I'm babbling but I just got home and it was such a long day and you were on fire and why are these records everywhere-"

"Remus, we should-"

"And everything is pulled out in the kitchen and now I'm going to have to clean it up and is that my favorite record, did you burn my favorite record-"

"Moony-"

"What were you even thinking, Sirius? What- Why are James and Lily and Peter here? What's going on? Sirius, what were you doing?"

"I'M TRYING TO BLOODY PROPOSE MARRIAGE IS WHAT I'M BLOODY DOING!" Sirius shouts.

Thankfully, in the ensuing awkward silence, Lily, James, and Peter finally take their cue to leave. All the color has drained from Remus' face.

"I- aagh, Moony, I didn't know what to do so I asked James and then he asked Lily and then they were trying to find romantic music and Peter was helping me cook a meal and then they lit your favorite record on fire and I tried to get it and I tripped and I don't even have a ring or even know if it's legal and this is probably even worse than Arthur Weasley's proposal but I love you and we already live together and-"

"Yes." Remus says.

Sirius goggles at him. "You- you want to-"

"Yes." Remus says again. "Of course, idiot." He leans in close. "Although, in the future, you might not want to use the word 'bloody' in a proposal. Seems a bit uncivilized."

"Shut up, Moony." Sirius says, kissing him, and they fall back onto the collection of records.


End file.
